


sealed fate

by sorrow_key



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Ambiguous Slash, Angst and Humor, But mostly Dark Humor I suppose, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Semi-Canon Compliant, Semi-Reliable Narrator, ghost - Freeform, names are important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 03:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrow_key/pseuds/sorrow_key
Summary: “I, too, wanted to stay friends with you, you know.” Once again, a helpless grin ghosts over his face. “But you just couldn’t agree with me, could you?”“I will stop you,” Oswald threatens and promises. “I will never let you do this.”Jack laughs even as the surety behind those words paralyzes him and walks to sit on his bed. “I can’t let you do that,” he says sadly. “But won’t you stay a while? It’s a long time until then.”(In which a living ghost meets a dead one of his own making.)





	sealed fate

**Author's Note:**

> Если можешь беги, рассекая круги./  
> Только чувствуй себя обреченной./  
> Стоит солнцу зайти, вот и я/  
> Стану вмиг фиолетово-черным.  
> -Фиолетово чёрный, Пикник

Jack’s quill stills over the paper at last. The candle holder casts his room into flickering, shadowed light. His room here in the Vessalius mansion is the same he’s stayed in ever since he was grudgingly invited to live here - a bastard still, but a legitimate one. Nowadays, he’s been offered the most luxurious suites, but refused.

They had interpreted it as humble. There are those who spun that into his legend, he knows, and those who think they've understood him and his plots for it.

Both are wrong, of course.

“I am no hero,” Jack has written in the false privacy of his recollections. That much he can irrevocably say  is the truth. To what extent, even those who will read it some day won’t be able to tell.

In some way, the people who watch him hawkishly and think him as caught up in the nobles’ intrigues of rank and power as they are are right after all. He _is_ making himself into a figure, a story, a myth of a man.

With a sigh that isn’t quite a yawn, Jack raises the quill to his cheek and then settles it down for good. The time has come to put out the candles and end the day for good.

It’s funny how his routine separates like that. There’s the time he spends in public society, acting the part of the hero and politician by necessity instead of ambition. The time with the people who know a deeper version of the lie and are to remember it for however long it takes - the keepers of his secrets. Or, some of them at least. He shapes the all too connected shards of this world according to his wishes, his plans growing ever firmer.

Jack lives for the future. He might always have. Since Her.

Then there are the times where he’s by himself. When he no longer needs to keep up anything - no lie or facade, not even for faceless future generations.

This starts just as soon as he blows out the candle. With an easy smile, he does so.

It’s nothing new, this feeling when he's alone, isn’t it? Jack thinks so, but he doesn’t like to remember it. The lack of a burden, the lack of a face. Mirrors and all-consuming nothingness. Masks and despair. Jack doesn’t think of this kind of things, except when he does.

“What does a lake’s reflect when no one looks inside?” Asks no one. “What is an actor without a stage?”

All who could have asked this are dead and Jack doesn’t think such things. He may not be entirely capable of it, at this point. There are just certain things you can’t do, certain things you can’t take if you look at yourself too closely.

Jack stretches and yawns, wide and ridiculous, for good measure. Inside his head, unpleasant laughter ghosts. What a strange thing to remember. Jack has much nicer ghosts to turn to.

Left is the candleholder by his bed. Jack shrugs off the last of his upper clothes in the light of it, leaving a simple white undershirt. He watches his shadow as he does, enraptured for some reason. It’s quiet. The world must have gone to sleep in unison, for once. It’s an amusing thought for a disquieting sensation.

A wind drifts through his room purposefully. Jack doesn’t think winds are supposed to have purpose; it seems counterproductive. Yet this one undeniably has one. Jack’s window is closed.

The candles flicker and die with its entrance. Only now Jack realises how dark it’s gotten. It’s a moonless night and with a last gleam of the embers, Jack can see nothing at all. It’s disorienting in its unfamiliarity. It’s been a long time since Jack has had to deal with utter darkness.

It should be nothing, nothing at all to him, and yet- and yet- There’s something foreboding about it. Like someone is there, but at the same time isn’t.

Jack is very good at sensing people in the dark. Call it a mark of trade or a skill of survival, but his sense is, above all, reliable.

Jack closes his eyes, half-curious if someone’s set out to harm him already, with the dust of the tragedy only just settling. It’d be problematic, with his little rabbit woefully out of commission and his own fighting skills having room for improvement. Jack has no intention of dying just yet, so he probably should be more afraid.

Anger. That’s the first thing he senses. That’s unusual; he'd think the location of his mysterious intruder more tangible than that person's _emotions_.

For some reason, Jack feels like shivering. His insides grow hot and cold, as if his body were having a falling out with itself.

Perhaps Jack is afraid after all. How strange, he thinks dimly, before frost grips his heart and he thinks nothing at all.

He comes to on his knees, sallow and clammy. His breathing is heavy, and so is his heart. Ice is eroding him from the inside. What is this? What is this? Why does he feel this way?

Then, at once, Jack understands. He smiles upwards.

“Hello again, Glen. Or is it just Oswald now?”

The winds turn like they’re agitated. In the middle of them, he sees him. Standing beside the candles. Glaring down at him in unspeakable rage. Oswald looks just the same as always. Except with marginally less corporeality and some more glowing, Jack supposes. Oswald shines from within in a bleak, otherworldly light, as if he’s swallowed the moon or replaced it for the night.

Jack shakes. He wants to reach out to him. His heart weighs cold and heavy still and the fear, primal and fervent, still holds him. And yet, and yet.

“So it’s really you?” He asks, soft and pained. To see the best friend he killed with his own hands again…

Oswald’s head lightly inclines. Jack isn’t sure if it’s in reply or merely regarding him. Jack doesn’t care. He smiles, wide and hopeless. Oswald’s  hair is the deepest black and his eyes are too dark to see their color. He always did have beautiful eyes.

“You killed me,” Glen Baskerville says, wreathed in fury and purpose. He moves towards Jack and Jack, Jack cannot breathe. He’s flayed open and laid bare and a thousands blades point at him all at once. The last time he felt like this, he splashed water in his friend-to-be’s face.

“Yes,” Jack admits, voice somehow steady. He breaks back into that smile and gives in - reaches for Glen’s shoulder, tries to cup it. His hand comes away numb. Jack reaches further, towards Glen’s neck. The head he’d touched and cradled is firmly connected to it. Jack feels a little like laughing hysterically. “And now you’re back?”

Glen lets him and keeps looking at him with those piercing, distant eyes. “You haven’t given up, have you.”

“No,” Jack says, everything except Glen fading at the edges of his awareness; the smile glued to him, the glint of tears in his eyes, the hand he no longer feels still caressing his friend. “Of course not. Don’t you understand?” A tear starts to fall. “Don’t you care about Lacie? Don’t you love her?”

Oswald’s face twists violently. He strikes at Jack, leaving his cheek stinging with cold. His hand drops from his friend’s cheek. A violent wind hits the writing desk behind him, scattering the paper in the air behind Jack. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Lacie is gone! I’m the-” A wretched smile that doesn’t belong on a face like his spans Oswald’s face. “I’m the one who killed her!”

“I know that,” Jack replies, smiling dully.

Oswald’s eyes widen. His grip tightens around his sword - or where he used to wear it, at least. Jack wonders if this Oswald has his sword. If he could kill him. Ah, he must have tried in that moment of unconsciousness. So this Oswald cannot kill him. That's a relief, he supposes.

“Then why!” Oswald demands.

Jack’s smile widens and he meets Oswald’s eyes, his own clear as crystal. “Lacie is lonely,” he says and grins sheepishly. “Or, _was_ lonely, as you’d say. Even if she’s no longer here- or anywhere at all-” His throat closes up. “I can still give her this. It’s what she would’ve wanted,” he implores.

Even if this Oswald isn’t real at all, but just an elaborate figment of his imagination, if he can convince him at least-

Oswald’s expression closes up, pained, and his voice is steely and sure when he says, “You’re insane.”

Jack shrugs. “Maybe.”

“It would've been easier if all you wanted was to avenge her,” Oswald- because it really is Oswald now, isn’t it, says with a painful earnestness he never showed in life.

“I couldn’t have done that. Revenge… It doesn’t change anything at all, does it?"

Jack ignores Oswald's sharp inhale, still billowing with winds of betrayal, hurt and rage before him, softly adding, “Besides, I never blamed you for her death. Never once.”

“I should’ve killed you too,” Oswald- because he can’t call him Glen if he’s decided like that, can he- states with bitter righteousness.

“Maybe,” Jack repeats and smiles. “Don’t feel too bad about it, Oswald. I did trick you, after all.”

“You didn’t,” Oswald says, hurt shining through like the moonlight inside of him, his fist clenched. “I suspected you all along. I was just too selfish to accept it and get rid of you.”

“I know,” Jack repeats, softly. “I, too, wanted to stay friends with you, you know.” Once again, a helpless grin ghosts over his face. “But you just couldn’t agree with me, could you?”

“I will stop you,” Oswald threatens and promises. “I will never let you do this.”

Jack laughs even as the surety behind those words paralyzes him and walks to sit on his bed. “I can’t let you do that,” he says sadly. “But won’t you stay a while? It’s a long time until then.”

Oswald regards him with disgust. “We aren’t friends,” he says. “Not anymore. And I will kill you as soon as I get the chance.”

Ouch. That one hurt. “We aren’t?” Jack asks. “Can’t we enjoy each other’s company just because we can’t let one another live?”

Oswald doesn’t glare at him, which would’ve been better. Instead, his stare is piercing in its detachment. “I should’ve realised just how broken your mind is.”

Now that was just rude. “Nobody blames you,” Jack reassures him, because he's nice like that. “Well, a lot of people blame you for a lot of things, but not for this.”

“Because you lied.”

“Yes, I had to do that,” Jack says regretfully. “I _am_ sorry about that, you know. But I had to.”

“Don’t apologise,” Oswald says with newfound hatred. “It means nothing.”

“Okay,” Jack agrees. “Why are you here, then? Not that I’m not happy to see you!”

Jack is, as much as he’s terrified of it. In the end, both of these feelings are only as tangible as an icicle in summer. It’s always like this, except for Her. Sorry Oswald, he thinks. I never could feel this way about you, or dearest Alice or our little friends.

“You killed me,” Oswald repeats.

Well, there is that.

“I should’ve killed you first. Or made sure we never met again. But I know better now.” Oswald speaks it like a prophecy - an undeniable truth, an unbreakable vow, “Don’t forget, Jack. No matter where, no matter when, I will hunt you down and I will stop you. No matter what it takes.”

There is a tremor in Jack’s hands. He wonders how long it’s been there. Jack is glad he’s sitting down. There is a force in Oswald’s words, stronger than his emotions or his winds. Jack is truly afraid, after all. A fear that runs deep as blood.

Jack smiles. “That means I won’t ever be free of you, will I?

“Never.”

With that, Oswald fades away. Jack leans back on the bed, hands pressing into the mattress, still smiling, still shaking. Outside his window, the sun starts rising.

 

Tomorrow Jack will go through with the ceremony and seal his best friend’s head. The last piece of him. The sorcerer’s eyes on him, Jack will take it into his hands one last time and press their foreheads together.

“Despite everything,” he’ll say, “I will miss you, my dearest friend.”

And it'll be no more a lie than the relief when the head finally disappears under the stone.

Then, Jack will keep wondering if he’s truly seen him that night. Then, Jack won’t think of it at all. Just as he doesn’t think of blood on his hands or corpses or masks.

And despite this, the icy fear won't leave his heart entirely in all of his years on this world. The words ring true still; Oswald _will_ appear again and he _will_ try to stop him again, despite Jack's best laid plans.

No matter the time, no matter the place; no matter what it takes.

Jack doesn't acknowledge it, but he supposes Oswald has given him something that lasts after all.

But it's nothing to hold onto, except in his worst loneliness, because Jack can't die yet. Not for as long as this world exists. He has no intention of losing. And yet, deeper than the blood, deeper than the fear - if he has to die, for it to be at his hand…

This too rings true, and that is why he's terrified of it. It would only be fair, after all.

 

On his bed, Jack whispers, "Goodbye, Oswald."

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this for months now, because angry ghosts ! What could I want more? 
> 
> Major inspiration were the song quoted at the start:  
> Go on, run if you can, drawing your circles/  
> But know that your fate is sealed./  
> With the rise of sun, here I am/  
> Will at once become violet-black.  
> -Violet Black, Piknik  
> (my translation, my mistakes) 
> 
> Plus, this wonderful hot fuzz fic. It includes homiecide that leads to mutual movie watching of ghost and murderer, which honestly tells you a lot about my inspiration and taste in fiction. Also, this author's hot fuzz fics are seriously neat!  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/165468
> 
> Also, Beethoven's Ghost. Highly recommending writing to it, it's fun


End file.
